This invention relates generally to media systems and, more particularly, to blackout features in media systems.
Generally speaking, a programming blackout occurs when a video distribution facility does not make programming available for viewing to a subset of all possible viewers at the time it was scheduled to be distributed. For example, a broadcaster may be prohibited from broadcasting a sporting event if the broadcaster's signal reaches any area within a certain radius of the sports venue where the event is being played. The distribution facility may deliver replacement media (or no media at all) on the blacked out channel during the blackout period.
Three illustrative types of programming blackouts are bandwidth blackouts, affiliate protection blackouts, and venue protection blackouts. Bandwidth blackouts may occur when a program has larger than typical bandwidth requirements. For example, a sports program may require more bandwidth than a non-sports program due to its fast-action nature. When a sports program is broadcast, bandwidth may be borrowed from another channel in order to satisfy the increased bandwidth requirement of the sports program. Borrowing bandwidth from a channel may prevent the broadcast of a regularly scheduled program on that channel. Thus, a blackout of that regularly scheduled program occurs.
Affiliate protection blackouts may occur when the same program is scheduled to be broadcast on two separate channels, such as a local network affiliate and a national channel. In an attempt to protect the interests of the local network affiliate, the television service provider may blackout the commonly scheduled program on the national channel in the locality of the local network affiliate.
Venue protection blackouts may occur, for example, when the provider of a live event wants to protect the venue of the live event by preventing the event from being televised nearby. For example, when a sporting event, or other live event, is not sold out, the sports team or league may prohibit the broadcast of the event to any television viewer within a given distance from the sporting venue in an attempt to increase ticket sales and attendance for the event and for future events. Thus, a programming blackout may occur on the channel scheduled to broadcast the event in those locations.
There have been several solutions proposed for supporting programming blackouts. For a description of one such system for providing blackout features in interactive television program guides, see U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/996,346, filed Nov. 28, 2001. However, due to the ever-increasing number of channels and services available in today's media guidance systems, user interfaces continue to evolve. For example, today video mosaic screens may present multiple video sources to a user in a single interactive application page. Such video mosaics enable users to access multiple services and/or assets from video-rich menu screens and displays.
Current blackout systems fail to adequately support video mosaic screens. With some video mosaics, the video sources that make up the mosaic may be remotely-generated. This means that the video sources are composited before reaching the user equipment and screen graphics, text, advertising, and other screen elements may be overlaid on the composited sources to form an interactive mosaic screen at the user equipment. One or more of these video sources may include national feeds that should be blacked out on a subset of the user equipment. This arrangement may result in video cells in a video mosaic screen presenting video that should in fact be blacked out in some locations.
For example, a user may request a remotely-generated sports genre video mosaic that displays a collection of six live sporting events. Each event may be presented in its own video cell or window in a video mosaic page. Two of the six sporting events may correspond to national television feeds that are blacked out on the user equipment due to one or more venue protection blackouts (e.g., the user is located within some geographic distance from the sporting event venue and the event is not sold out) and another sporting event may be blacked out due to an affiliate protection blackout (e.g., the event is also being broadcast on a local network channel). Current blackout systems are not capable of blacking out individual elements within a remotely-generated video mosaic; therefore, events may be presented in violation of the blackout. This is highly undesirable, as service operators are typically under contract not to broadcast blacked out content, yet the user still desires to have some content presented in place of the blacked out content and to be able to view the remainder of the video mosaic.
For locally-generated mosaics, blacked out content may be removed before reaching the user equipment. For example, a cable headend may remove blacked out content from a transmission stream or cable signal so that this content cannot be viewed or accessed on the user equipment. This is undesirable for locally-generated mosaics because the user equipment may generate the mosaic screen with one or more missing cells (e.g., cells displaying no content).
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/510,363, filed Aug. 24, 2006, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, describes one approach for blacking out individual cells of a video mosaic page. Although this system may replace one or more blacked out cells with replacement media content similar to the blacked out content, it would be desirable to also allow a user to subsequently access blacked out content should the blackout condition be lifted.
It would also be desirable to provide more flexible blackout support for all types of video mosaic screens, both locally-generated and remotely-generated. For example, it would be desirable to provide summary information about the blacked out content or content similar to the blacked out content to the user during the programming blackout.